


Chthonian Limericks

by proser132



Category: The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Angst, Humour, M/M, PTSD, Romance, Snark, Whump, temporal displacement (this one's mine)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-12
Updated: 2012-09-01
Packaged: 2017-11-12 00:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proser132/pseuds/proser132
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All in all, Steve was just wading through life, not really seeing it. It would take several midnight encounters, a few roboticised villains, and a very persistent Tony Stark to make Steve realise that he didn't just belong in the 21st century.</p>
<p>Perhaps part of the 21st century belonged to /him/.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Omnivore

 .....

**Part One: Omnivore.**

 .....

Sometimes, when the moon had fallen and the sunrise had not yet flung her arms skyward, Steve could pretend, just for a moment, that he was home.

This was hard, some days (most notably after he had helped defeat some technologically advanced monster or narrowly avoided some physics-induced death). Those days, no matter how he sat atop some taller-than-heaven building, and no matter how he stared above the skyline, he could not force away the sound of the life that passed below him. His sense of dates was hazy (a side effect, he was assured, of temporal displacement – whatever _that_ meant), but he knew more than seventy years had passed. By anyone's count, he was an old, old man. His time was gone.

Those nights, he really, _really_ wished he could get drunk.

But most nights (okay, rare nights), the cars quieted, and the sky was dark, and he could imagine he could see the constellations of his childhood in the orange haze above the city, and that he was a boy again, before Captain Rogers, before Captain America. Where all he had wanted was to serve, nothing more. Where his greatest fear was that he would never even get to sort scrap metal.

Well, his second greatest fear.

He knew the other Avengers worried about him, insomuch that they could spare the concern between the weekly (and even more frequent) attacks on the world, on S.H.I.E.L.D., on themselves and their loved ones. In the wake of Loki's attempt at world-domination, villains crawled out of the woodwork like silverfish, and many of their schemes were as clever as they were deadly. Steve had resigned himself to a soldier's post. Point. Shoot – well, in his case, Toss Shield. Follow Orders (when he wasn't giving His Own).

Even with all of the other things to focus on, there were still the side-long glances. No one, not even super-soldiers, should fight so expressionlessly, so silently. More than once Clint had opened his mouth to say something, or Natasha would stare at him narrowly when the fight had ended, or Banner would consider him not-unlike a specimen in post-battle debriefings.

But he could ignore all that, because, some nights, in the arms of a night-wrought illusion, he _belonged here_. They weren't often, though, and most of the time ( _like tonight_ ) he was left to try and exorcise his own demons.

He always failed.

Cars sped by, bleeding halogen bulbs sweeping by him in vast currents of light, drowning out the constellations above as arrogantly as if they were small stars themselves. He hated the arrogance inherent in his beloved America – it shone through in the face of every person he passed, and, perhaps most brightly, it shone in Tony Stark's face during meetings, beyond far-off stars, a burning sun that gleamed irritatingly in his eyes. He didn't like that, of all people, _Tony Stark_ represented America better than he did; wasn't America one of the few things he had left?

Steve leaned against the gritty wall of  brownstone, trying to look as if he was breathing hard, as if he was normal. Normalcy, these days, was all about striving for physical excellence, and bullying yourself when you couldn't reach it. He supposed that's why no one gave him a second look; a man his fitness level shouldn't have to push, but no one in America leaned back and enjoyed the fruits of their labours anymore.

Nothing was the same, anymore.

'Now I _know –_ I know – heh, that isn't from – shit, what's the word – exertion,' a familiar voice said from behind. 'What's got you up, Cap?'

Steve did not tense, like he wanted to. He didn't even turn round. Silence was a damn good defence. He moved forward, trying to mentally block _him_ out.

He recognised the drunken drawl in Stark's voice, honey sweet and whiskey sharp. If gold had a voice, natural gold, rough and knobbly and covered in grit, it would sound like Tony Stark.

His steps were all but drowned out in the loud rev of a passing car's engine, speeding by with lights and doo-dads enough to dazzle Steve, and the sound almost obscured Stark's call of, 'Cap? Hey, Cap!'

Steve ignored it, and after a minute, when the car had fishtailed the corner and sped out of sight, he heard the other man mutter, 'Must've been some other jacked guy...' Steve smiled, and started to jog away. The cars had slowed to a trickle by now, the halogen currents reduced to a dry riverbed of asphalt streets and blinking intersection lights. His mouth twitched, already tired, and he fought the urge to drop his grin.

The smile fell, though. It always did.

 .....

'You know, it's been three nights I've been sober, tryin' to find you, Cap.'

There was no liquid sound in Stark's voice tonight, and Steve cursed gently in his head as he turned. He should have known better than to go running through the city more than once a week, much less the same route.

Stark leaned against the wall of an alley, his clothes in a state of dishevelment, the light in his chest glowing dully through his black shirt. Steve had seen it glowing ferociously today, flaring in bright bursts as he flew, twisting left and right and dodging the RPGs that the would-be-terrorists had tried to use to gain entrance to S.H.I.E.L.D. That light in the middle of his chest was what had driven Steve out here tonight, had so reminded him of his not-belonging, the idea that a machine (something like an 'arch reaction') could not only keep a man alive in this day and age, but could power at the same time a massive full-metal exoskeleton. How heavy did that thing have to be, he thought idly, waiting for Stark to speak again, and how strong a man did he have to be in order to wield it?

If physics hadn't _also_ changed in the years Steve had spent on ice.

'That's a hell of a dry streak for me, you know,' Stark commented, 'and one I intend to break. Christ, Cap, what are you doing?'

Steve arched his eyebrow at him, stealing one of his expressions. Stark's grimace showed that he knew it.

'Running.'

'And breathing and seeing and hearing, yeah, yeah, yeah,' Stark said dismissively. 'Let's leave the kiddie-come-backs on the playground. After all,' Stark gestured a hand clearly intended to encompass the night, the city, the far-off clock tolling once, twice. 'Kids aren't allowed out after dark.'

Steve wasn't in the mood for Stark's sense of humour. 'Can I help you, or are you going to talk at me until dawn?'

'You aren't liberal enough for the stories I'd tell,' Stark said, chuckling. His eyes narrowed slightly, despite the remaining smile, and he looked to be bracing himself. 'Are you alright, Cap?'

'Just fine,' Steve replied, and watched curiously as Stark scowled slowly. 'Is something wrong?'

'You're off,' he said, frowning at Steve as if trying to solve a new puzzle. 'Like a turkey on Easter. And too neutral. I thought good-boy-patriot would have been thrilled with today's result. A home-run for Team Red White and Blue, and all that.' His eyes narrowed further. 'Or that you'd be angry they almost blew holes in you with rockets.'

'Maybe I'm not as volatile as you,' Steve said mildly.

Stark's expression failed, his face an abrupt blank.

Steve slowly jogged away, building up to a run, then to what others would have called a full-on sprint.

He called it satisfaction.

 .....

Stark didn't look at him once when next trouble struck that called for the Avengers. Not much of an interval (two days? Two hours?) but it still counted. The villains grew ever more clever, proving to him time and time again that he was fast becoming obsolete in a world that no longer needed a Captain America, much less wanted one. Not that he blamed them; the America he had signed on for, the America that he had lived and breathed and believed in and fought for, was an idea almost as obsolete as he was. An idea that Stark would have cast aside as easily as a failed blueprint – though when Stark had become his measuring stick for his own inadequacies, Steve had no idea.

What they fought this time, though... something about the name had made everyone laugh (the Cruxis Crystal), but the laughter had crashed like a two ton pile of bricks when a single blast knocked Romanov out of commission. (She wouldn't wake up for four days, and when she did, she never spoke of the Cruxis Crystal again. Steve had recognised the new lines under her eyes, though; the coma she had been in was not what could be described as 'peaceful'.) Most of Steve's attention had gone towards that – and, well, staying alive – but enough remained to see that Stark said goodbye to everyone in Romanov's hospital room after the mess except him.

Steve had shrugged it off; who even knew what went on in Stark's alcohol-fuelled mind? He went back to the apartment to relish being alive, being alone, even if he was out of place.

It was one of the rare nights that he could pretend he was home where he belonged, and so he did, staying in and reading a sample of the seventy years of poetry he'd missed. There was nothing wrong with a little escapism.

 .....

'This is the second time you've forced me to go dry, Captain. I hope it doesn't become a habit.'

Steve didn't pause, just kept jogging. He'd gone out of his way to avoid any part of the city that Stark might appear in, but a three night streak was too much to ask for. Footsteps caught up to him, and there was Stark, keeping pace and looking pissed.

'You could always stop bothering me,' Steve offered politely.

'So you can run yourself to death and I can get blamed? Please,' Stark scoffed. 'Might as well hand you the keys to a shuttle and be done with it.' Steve didn't bother to look confused, but Stark clearly picked up on it, anyway. 'Nah, you need someone to press your buttons 'til you blow. How many nights do you go running a week?'

'I fail to see how –'

'Six? Seven if we didn't just fight something,' Stark mused. 'Someone could start thinking you were running away from something.'

'If they felt they were entitled to my private thoughts,' Steve said, teeth gritted. 'Which they're _not_.' It was one thing to be on edge around Stark, quite another to know the man was doing it on purpose.

'Well, maybe not,' Stark conceded, 'But national treasures shouldn't be so obvious about their thoughts, then.'

'I'm not.' Stark stared at him askance, but Steve knew the sharp tone, heavy and venomous, was right. He would not apologise. Stark sighed.

'Look, Cap, I'm not any good at this 'counselling' shit,' Stark began. 'Because, seriously, genius though I may be, I suck at this. But everyone's so certain that you're okay, I'm okay, we're all okay that Banner and I, as the scientists, have to be the dissidents.'

'Because the majority is never right,' Steve said, looking at Stark, finally, and trying to ignore the glint of genuineness beneath all of the sarcasm. He would never say it aloud (not since Clint had told him stories of what Stark had done to people who mentioned it), but he looked a lot like Howard in that moment. 'Because democracy doesn't work, the majority shouldn't rule.'

'Democracy is like the scientific community,' Stark said, eyes dancing madly under passing street-lights (how fast were they running?) as he warmed up to his subject. 'The dissidents are necessary for progress, because without them there wouldn't be new ideas, debate, _innovation_.'

'Sorry,' Steve said, and endured another askance look. 'When you said “everyone” I assumed you meant the Avengers, not the continental United States.'

Stark laughed, but stopped abruptly with a little intake of breath, as if shocked that anyone but him could induce laughter. Steve took the opportunity to subtly pour on the speed, but Stark, almost absent-mindedly, kept pace. Steve could hear his breath grow uneven, though; they'd been running for twelve blocks, while talking, without showing signs of slowing down.

'You don't do sarcasm,' Stark said, sounding for the first time in recent memory awed. 'You don't do sarcasm, you don't do clever conversation –'

Steve glared, but let it slide for the sake of hearing where he was going.

'– Christ, if you start swearing I'll have to test you to see if you're m – the Cap I know.'

Steve stopped mid-stride, and watched as Stark overshot him by twenty feet before skidding to a stop and turning around.

'Cap?'

'Why are you here, Stark?' Steve asked clearly into the twenty feet of silence between them. 'Go home. Go see Ms. Potts, go drinking, go design a new suit. Leave. Just because I run doesn't mean there's something behind me.'

Stark stood, looking thunderstruck, as if there was a variable he hadn't even known how to name suddenly staring him in the face.

'You don't belong here,' he said, mid-thought before Steve turned, and ran, because now there was something to run from.

 .....

He spoke when spoken to. He fought. He ate. He slept. He ran. But no more than that. He could even manage to do most of these around Mr. Stark (the mister helped put some distance between them). But he wasn't living, and he knew it.

No one else noticed. Maybe he had slid so far into the annals of apathy that no one noticed the difference any more. The rare nights he so cherished blurred to a distant memory as the months rolled past and the villains grew fiercer but more subtle. The Avengers were needed less often, though they kept in touch. Well, they kept in touch with _him_. Steve would have been content to fade away into the normalcy of the city.

That wasn't to say that they, as a group, didn't spend any time at S.H.I.E.L.D.; it was on one of those afternoons, between one crisis and the next, that Steve was wandering the halls, looking for something, _anything_ , to occupy his time. When he heard raised voices echoing down a deserted hallway, he only thought it a good way to spend his afternoon.

'What the hell do you mean, no one's explained it to him?!'

Steve froze in place at hearing Stark's voice. Short of barbed quips on the battlefield and comments during debriefings, he hadn't heard Stark _really_ speak in four months (God, had it really been so long since he'd been slapped in the face with his own unimportance?) His voice sounded less like gold and more like iron pyrite – sharp, unforgiving, shining in anger.

'How would you explain something like that, Mr. Stark?' Fury answered, low, thick tones hiding his thoughts like a ski mask. 'At this point we're relieved he hasn't collapsed from the effects of temporal displacement, like others we've found or unfrozen ourselves.'

Steve flinched. They were talking about _him_. And the conversation didn't sound pleasant. Collapse? Explained? He crept closer to the door.

'The other turkeys you've defrosted weren't changed into super-soldiers and forced to fight on some of the nastiest battlefields in human history, much less expected to continue beating the ever-loving shit out of your mistakes afterwards!' Stark sounded furious. 'If he wasn't so pigheaded about being the hero, he would have done so long before now!'

'Stark, I understand your concern –'

'You'll give Clint combat-counselling after being controlled by the Norse Freakazoid, but you can't even spare Prozac – hell, some _St. John's Wort tea_ to help _his_ obvious depression? What the hell is your game?'

'There is no game,' Fury said, sounding sharp. 'We value the lives of all our men –'

'Clearly not enough to spare them the flashbacks and depression of PTSD, much less temporal displacement.'

_PTSD_?

'You're out of line.'

'And you,' Stark said, voice suddenly louder, 'Are abusing one of your –' the door opened before Steve could step away, and Stark froze. Behind him, Fury looked impassive as always, but there was a tinge of tension in his jawline. 'Steve,' Stark said, eyes wide. His face was unshaven, his clothes rumpled, the lines on his face deeper than ever.

Steve did the responsible thing. He nodded, and turned, and walked away. Behind him, there was nothing but silence.

 .....

Steve marvelled at computers when he wasn't busy being bewildered. It took a while of poking at the buttons on the board until he had opened the internet, and a little while longer until he figured out Google. But when he did, he had more than an eyeful.

PTSD was shell shock, he learned. Devastating mentally, it could result in flashbacks, depression, anxiety, hyper-vigilance, and insomnia. In certain cases, the patient became violent and withdrawn, losing faith in humanity.

Temporal displacement was a similar story. Depression, anxiety, and most notably, a sense of not belonging. It was... strange, to think that all he had been suffering for the past few months was something that could be fixed. But then...

In a perverse sense, he didn't want it to. He liked his midnight runs, he liked the nights of solitude and quiet contentment, he liked the way no one asked him to do more than he was truly capable of. It was a simple existence, and he wasn't certain he wanted to give it up. But a large part of him questioned his own motives, and asked if he was taking the easy way out.

Probably.

Still, anyone who had a problem with that could go, in Stark's immortal words, fuck a tree. Besides; no matter how pissed Stark had sounded, he didn't actually give a damn.

Steve blinked and looked at himself. He never swore like that. Maybe... maybe he really _wasn't_ Captain America anymore.

Or maybe America had changed.

 .....

'That's three times, you patriotic bastard, and I'm making you cover my next tab in revenge.'

Steve just kept going. He was walking, tonight, because in a weird way, he felt like his running was over.  Fury had removed him from active duty until he was “mentally fit to carry out his duties”. Now he wandered aimlessly, uncertain of what to do with himself – and blessedly relieved. At last, he was no longer Captain America; Steve Rogers felt like an old suit he hadn't been able to wear in years, and finally fit into again. It was a feeling he wasn't yet sure he liked.

Obsolescence, perhaps, had a pleasant up-side. He kept walking.

'Hey. _HEY!_ Oh, for fuck's sake –'

A hand on his shoulder, but he rolled them like liquid, and the hand fell away with a hiss. A second later, Stark fell into step beside him; Steve stared ahead, refusing to look to the side. He had places to go.

First, the park. He had spent one or two nights perched in the highest branches of the tallest tree, pretending the city lights didn't haunt the edges of his vision, horrible ghosts of lives he had never known, living as if he was never there. He placed a hand on the bark, and bowed his head; they stood there for ten minutes, the silence of the park leeching away the sounds of the city until he could pretend, for the span of a few seconds, that it was the country, and the sky stretched effortlessly into the hand of God. He wasn't sure he believed in God, anymore, but for those few seconds, he believed in Him like there was nothing else in the universe.

He pulled away, and turned, and that sense of belief remained imprinted on the tree; he had no need of it anymore.

Stark followed him to the next three destinations: the tall-as-Heaven building he had sat on and tried to forget the world below, the bar in which he had once tried his damndest to get drunk and forget it all, and finally, the bridge, the only place he had ever slowed down during his midnight sprints, because the water only reflected the sky, and he could pretend he was floating.

It was here they stopped, and he leaned against the rail, studying the water beneath them as avidly as he would have the skies. Stark had not spoken once, and to the east, a slip of periwinkle was starting to show beneath the velvet skirt of darkness. Soon, her hands would lift up into the sky, palms a brilliant white, and Steve didn't know when he'd become so poetic.

'I'm an idiot.'

Steve looked at Stark for the first time that night; his face was still turned to the water, and his profile was scrunched up, looking physically pained at the admission. 'An explosive-grade idiot,' he repeated, and Steve shook his head – not necessarily in denial, but in companionship.

'We're all idiots,' he said slowly, turning back to the water even as Stark ( _Tony_ , his mind whispered traitorously) turned to look at him. 'Everyone. But idiots can have the best intentions.'

'Intentions get you nowhere,' Stark argued; Steve could feel his dark eyes on the side of his face, piercing and absorbing. That was why he didn't look back. 'Good intentions sound noble, but they don't get anything done.'

'There,' Steve said, and he was surprised to find his voice pleasant to hear, instead of the rough sound he had expected from his throat. 'I finally found a place where you're wrong.' He turned, and faced Stark, and smiled, and watched as Stark's pupils contracted unexpectedly in the lights of an oncoming car. 'They give hope.'

'Hope is useless in any real situation,' Stark said, looking disinterested again. That look dropped to bare shock when Steve shrugged, turned back to the water, and said simply,

'It kept me from jumping.'

Silence. An audible swallow, shuffling feet; the rasp of Stark's hands twisting over and over. Steve could see the shadow on the lip of pavement, right before it dropped off in the thick blackness of the water.

'You mean –'

'Right here, too,' Steve said, continuing on conversationally despite the break.. Stark was looking at him with a different gaze; Steve could feel it on his face. 'It would be so easy, wouldn't it. To just fall over, and let go, and breathe water for a moment.' He glanced over, but had to look away again from the intensity waiting for him. 'But I didn't. Because Fury had good intentions. And Dr. Banner. And Coulson. And Romanov. And you.' He paused. 'And me.'

Stark still stared at him, silence flavouring the air cold, and Steve scoffed. 'You can't tell me that you've never thought about getting it over with.' He turned, and this time he held the gaze, matching blink for blink, breath for breath. 'Better to die a martyr than to grow old and obsolete, to not matter.' Stark wasn't blinking anymore. 'But you see...'

Steve pulled a quarter from his pocket, balanced it on his thumbnail, braced as it was against his forefinger. 'I grew old without knowing it. I'm already obsolete. I didn't have time to become a martyr. So I have no choice but to keep fighting a war I was drafted into, that I don't believe in.'

He flipped the coin. Stark's eyes followed the mercurial movement of nickel through the air, until it was caught in Steve's wide palm. Without looking to see how it landed, Steve settled it on his thumb again. 'What America is this? I asked myself that a couple hundred times.'

'Cap –' Stark started, but Steve held up his free hand.

'You called me Steve once. I'd like to leave it on that note.' He flipped the coin again, caught it, balanced it on his nail. Stark winced sharply at his last statement, even as Steve readied the coin for another flip. It was comforting, hypnotic. 'The America I knew was humble and proud at the same time. We took what we got, and gave everything we had. When we had what we needed, we were happy. At least, it felt like that to me. But now...' He shrugged, flipped the coin a final time, slapped it down on the back of his hand, kept his hands clasped like that. 'Is America dead, Tony?'

Stark flinched at his name.

'I don't know,' he said, and without looking he flung the quarter into the water. It whistled for a long time before the small, tinny splash reached his ears. 'I just don't know. And I can't be Captain if I don't know what I'm captain _of_.'

'You don't belong here,' Stark said, and Steve jerked, the flechette of truth as undeniable as Stark himself.

'I know. You mentioned that. But I can't –'

'No, you idiot,' Stark said, slipping easily into the space between Steve's words. 'You don't belong here. Haven't you ever left this city? This is not the entire country, even if it's practically the size of Rhode Island. America's probably had the shit beaten out of her, but she isn't KO'd yet. Vermont's like that. Maine's like that.' He laughed after a moment, shakily tried to dig out a cigarette, dropped two in the water before he managed to hold one long enough to light it. 'I sound like a goddamn travel brochure.'

He dragged in slowly, and when he held one out to Steve, he took one gladly. The nicotine may no longer have an effect on his body, he thought darkly, but old habits died hard. Smoking was common when he was – around – and the scent of tobacco was still a familiar one, even if America had decided it was an unhealthy vice now.

Stark looked a bit surprised, but lent him a light, anyway. They stood smoking on the bridge, silent but for the occasional passing car, until Stark said,

'It's late. Or early. We're closer to my place – you can crash for the night. Morning. Whatever.'

It was an unprecedented offer, but not one Steve took to be as light and casual as Stark's voice made it out to be. No one was really invited to the Tower, except on business. Steve finished the cigarette, rubbed it out on the rail, and exhaled as he tossed the butt into the water.

'Thanks, Stark.'

'Tony.'

'Tony.'

 .....


	2. Immersion

**Part Two: Immersion.**

 .....

Steve found himself outside Stark Tower a few days later. It wasn't night, and he had no invitation; still, he couldn't help it. He felt like he was supposed to be here, at the moment, and here he was. He pressed the buzzer.

'Look, Agent whatever, I'm not interested in whatever pile of shit Fury is trying to –' came Stark's furious voice, then it paused. 'Steve?'

'Hey,' Steve said, feeling as if he was skinny and asthmatic and awkward again.

'Unbe-fuckin'-lievable,' Stark's voice came through. 'I must still be drunk. Steve Rogers, at my doorstep –? Jarvis, check my BAC.'

'I can go,' Steve said, looking to the side as if Tony was in front of him.

'Can't recognise sarcasm? I'll need to give you a primer. Come on in.'

The door opened, and Steve stepped hesitantly inside.

It hadn't changed much in the three days since he had last come here. Plastic sheeting breezed by as if pushed by tiny, invisible hands, and more than one work table was littered with electronic tools and the Stark-patented flexi-screens, all shining with blueprints yet to be realised. There was the sound of machinery and computers left to do their jobs in peace, and notebooks lay about where they were dropped; where he could see the pages, long lines of equations he didn't understand curved lovingly over the white paper.

He really needed to ease up on the poetry.

'Wow, you're real,' Tony said as the elevator slid open. He wore a plain black shirt, through which the arc reactor (he had finally corrected Steve's mispronunciations) glowed brighter than dimmed, as if happy to see another human being. 'Pepper just left with some more plans, and I was considering calling in a friend to help me empty the liquor cabinet.'

'I can't get drunk,' Steve said flatly.

'Just means you can drink more than the rest of us,' Tony said, eyebrow lifted high. 'But that means you're the sober friend. Good; Pepper tells me I don't have enough of them.' He grinned. 'I'll call in the big guy and Romanov.'

'Is it a good idea to let Dr. Banner drink?' Steve asked, surprised.

'Oh, god, no,' Tony said, shuddering. 'Lightweight if I've ever seen one. No, I was talking about Thor. And Romanov's Russian; she can hold her shit.' Tony laughed, and Steve tentatively smiled.

So Steve Rogers spent the first night in more than seventy years drinking with friends. Romanov had only blinked upon seeing him, and Thor hadn't responded at all; eventually, the three got into a drinking contest, with Steve judging, as he was the only one who could retain his senses.

Unpredictably, it was Romanov who went down last, and in the only feminine moment he could recall her possessing, she giggled, and said, 'You go'a ligh'in up, Cap'. You saved th' worl', you know.' Then she collapsed in a fit of giggling and fell asleep.

The next morning, when even Thor looked queasy, she looked ready to go fight an army of aliens.

Which, incidentally, Tony and Thor were required to do with a heavy hangover.

Steve couldn't remember the last time he had smiled so much.

 .....

And, like before, it crumbled in his hands.

'Tony! _Tony!_ '

Steve didn't want to believe what was in front of his eyes, but it was hard to deny the gaping fifteen-foot hole in the 57th floor – which by pure luck of the draw was the floor Steve had been exploring before Tony was hurled through it like a die through a card tower.

He'd actually just been looking for a place to sit down and read the book of modern poetry Tony had lent him as a joke-not-joke. ('I never knew _Captain America_ had a sweet tooth for poetry. God, if the Internet could see your face right now –')

He'd thought he'd found the perfect room, too. Tony and the other Avengers (who had slowly started creeping back into Steve's life, with sidelong looks and a bone-crushing hug from Thor) had been called out to investigate an unusually high number of suspicious mutants in the Bronx. For the first time in weeks, weeks spent in Tony's tower and with the other Avengers, it really stung to be left behind. He'd resolved to speak with Fury at the soonest possible moment.

He'd set down the book on the couch, turned to survey the primarily glass-and-chrome room, and then with a sound like a marching band dropping off a high cliff, Tony – _Iron Man_ , his brain corrected, _he's in his suit_ – had smashed through the glass and crunched into the far wall.

Steve had stared dumbly as Tony's face plate folded back, revealing bruises and a copious amount of blood, and he looked at Steve sheepishly as if apologising for interrupting. Which he'd never do. It just looked like it.

'Ouch,' he'd said, almost cheerfully, and passed out.

He dashed over, heart thumping like a jackhammer against his ribs, and he dropped to his knees beside him. 'Tony!'

He shook him. 'Oh, no, no – Tony – God! Tony!'

There was no answer. Nothing but a very, very shallow breathing, softer, _softer_ , silence.

Steve stood, slowly. Everything was slow. It felt like he was immersed in gel, or some other viscous fluid that hurt his throat and stung his eyes and battered his lungs and sort of tortured each piece of his body individually. Behind him, he heard a shrill, soft scream – Pepper had just arrived. From the thump, she, too, had fallen to her knees, and from the choked sob that followed immediately afterwards, she had discovered his lack of breathing, too.

Before Steven, looking impassive, was an elderly man, a metal helmet upon his head, a cape billowing out in an un-felt wind. 'He should have learned,' he said, a thick English accent almost making the words benign. He scoffed next, which dispelled that idea entirely. ' _Homo sapiens_.' He turned, slow as the rest of the world.

Below, Steve hadn't even noticed the flashes of light and cries of pain in the street, he was so removed in height. It appeared the Avengers and the X-Men had formed a shaky alliance to try and repulse the massive force of mutants under this man's command, pouring into Manhattan from the east, looting buildings and destroying whatever – and whoever – they found. And this man... Arrogant and already descending to the battlefield, as if he had done nothing of import... This man had killed Tony.

'Watch him,' Steve growled, the world snapping back to speed like rubber.

'What?' Pepper gasped through sobs.

'Watch him!' Steve snarled, the noise tearing through his throat, and he dashed to the hole in the wall and leapt.

Magneto never saw it coming.

Steve landed like a wall of bricks on the man's back, grappling furiously for a hold, finally finding one in the leather edges of Magneto's vest, and listening with a sick sort of satisfaction he would never admit to the startled scream from the murderer's mouth. Whatever power Magneto had been using to stay afloat stuttered and failed, and they plunged down towards the writhing mass of mutants on the street, Magneto unable to curb his screaming and Steve stubbornly, ominously silent.

'Captain?!' he heard from below, screamed, in fact. That was probably Clint. No, it was Banner, who hadn't Hulked out yet.

Magneto's power stuttered back on, but it was weak, and even if they were descending by half their speed, they were still descending pretty fast. It was wobbly, like Magneto couldn't control their balance due to the uneven distribution of weight, and Steve jerked to the side. The power failed again, and now he was holding Magneto above him, in a parody of rescue. The mutants were starting to scream their anger, and more than one made towards them, only to be deflected by one of his team.

Steve tried to turn, but only managed it halfway, so that when they exploded a landing into a pile of rubble, they were torn apart and flung to opposite sides. Predictably, Steve was up first. Later he would realise he was up last, too. He turned in place, surveying the mob of mutants, frozen in shock.

'Holy shit,' Clint said behind him, the only sound in a suddenly silent street. 'Where the hell did you come from?'

'Get going,' Steve said – no, Captain America said, in a low growl, and darted forward.

He didn't know how many mutants he took out. He couldn't remember. There were bits and fragments he could recall, like the girl whose concussive blasts knocked him, tumbling, through the dust, or the boy (little more than a child) who tried to stab him with glassy shards of air. But more than that? Nothing but a blank, and when he finally came to himself, mutants lay in groaning piles, like a snowfall had come and instead of dropping ice it had dropped their bodies.

'...tain! Captain America!'

He turned, only to be bombarded with the helpless stares of his teammates and the awed ones of the X-Men as they came to stop in front of him. They had clearly just run some distance to catch up.

'How is Iron Man?' Banner asked, clothes torn and with the shade of shame colouring his eyes – the way it did every time he became the other guy. 'We saw him thrown in.'

Captain America stared at them, then walked past them, trudging back to Stark Tower.

'Captain? Captain!'

'I don't know,' he said, in a low voice. 'But when I left, he... I...'

Silence followed behind him, as the taste of victory in their mouths went sour. It had never been sweet in the Captain's.

'Steve, wait up –'

And then he was surrounded by his teammates, all of whom were marching beside him. The X-Men behind them kept a polite distance, but they, too, were following. Steve looked around in wonder.

'I refuse to believe it,' Black Widow said, eyes narrowed. Hawkeye nodded beside her. Banner looked determined, Thor was scowling, and Captain America was – he was –

Steve felt like a part of him was missing.

 .....

'He's alive?'

Steve knew his voice was high, his eyes huge, and far more emotion was in his voice that was ever appropriate for losing a teammate, but he didn't care, because Tony had apparently _survived_.

'Jarvis and I got him down to one of the medical labs in time,' Pepper nodded, looking exhausted. 'Magneto had disconnected the wire of the arc reactor.' She shook her head; her face was smudged with grime, her hair loose around her shoulders, and Steve could see her devotion. 'But he was clinically dead for a minute there, and I – I'm worried about brain damage – and there's no fixing that, and –'

Steve hushed her, slowly, gently, until she collapsed sobbing into his arms. He patted her gingerly on the back; seventy years on ice had done little to improve him in the 'dame department'.

'What matters is that you saved his life,' Steve said kindly, and she nodded before stepping back, and her face (for all its tear stains) was stoic.

'I'll go alert everyone else,' she said almost-calmly, and left Steve alone in the lab with the deeply unconscious Tony.

Steve walked over, looking at him with the eyes of a man who has seen too many battle wounds to not recognise what was in front of him. Several broke ribs, by looks of the bruising, multiple lacerations up the arms, a concussion by the bruise that was looking to egg up, and a black oh God he was _awake_.

'Hey, Steve,' Tony said cheerfully, and Steve almost, _almost_ , clocked him. Instead, he stood there, shoulders shaking, and Tony quirked an eyebrow at him. 'Hey. Steve. Are you okay?' His gaze narrowed. 'Did the Magnet-Head hurt you? 'Cause if he did I –'

'What on earth possessed you,' Steve said, voice low and slicing, and Tony shut up out of surprise, 'to try and take on a mutant whose power is to manipulate metal, _alone_?'

Tony stared at him, for the first time in Steve's memory looking bewildered. 'Well, I mean, everyone else was busy kicking ass and no one else could go for him, and if we let him alone he was going to conquer Manhattan, and I guess I didn't really think of the manipulate metal thing, 'cause he was looking to destroy the tower, and you and Pepper and Jarvis are in there, and those three things are kind of important, and –'

'You are an idiot, Tony,' Steve interrupted the (probably painkiller-induced) rambling. And then, before he could do something stupid, like actually punch him, he turned and walked away.

'Steve – Steve, wait – Steve, this is –'

 .....

'I don't know if you're ready.'

'Sir,' Steve said, eyebrow raised in that expression he had to stop stealing from Tony, 'By all accounts, I alone took out a third of the invading force of four thousand mutants.'

Fury winced, and Steve felt gratified for the first time since he had walked into Fury's office and demanded to be allowed to continue his captaincy of the Avengers. The older man had been trying to, as delicately as he appeared to be able, give him arguments to the contrary but all in vain. Steve patiently dissected each one, cheerfully watching Fury as his scowl mounted and mounted. He'd made the point about the mutants already; it was just to see his expression that he'd brought it up again.

'Do you understand the ramifications of the syndromes you are displaying, Captain Rogers?' he asked, trying to take it down a different road. 'You could suffer debilitating flashbacks if you continue to recklessly pursue this course. In the middle of battles, more than likely.' Fury leaned in. 'It could mean the death of your teammates.'

Steve froze, brain oxymoronically flinging itself into hyper-drive. This... this was not at all what... How could he doom them? Clint and Bruce, Natasha and Thor... Tony... He'd already had to face losing a teammate this week. The only one who'd reached out to him. Tony was too –

'Now, I know I'm not seeing this.'

'Tony!' Steve said, whirling in his seat. Tony Stark positively _lounged_ against the door-frame, eyes lazily surveying the room with a hint of ice, his reactor shining like a beacon through his black shirt.

_Oh._

'This is a private meeting, Stark,' Fury said loudly, for the first time in the meeting genuinely angry. 'I know you have the intelligence to crack my security, but you don't have to use it.'

'When you've got it, flaunt it,' Tony said boisterously, bouncing off the door-frame with a jolt of his hip and prowling forward. His eyes were wider now, but only so much as they needed to be to change his expression from lazy to determined. His mouth was set in a grim line, one that could be used as a straight-edge if ever Steve decided to draw on his face, and his hand settled oddly on Steve's shoulder, gripping it in a way that crumpled the shirt fabric between his knuckles. 'But there is such a thing as _too much_. Ring any bells?.'

'We've had this discussion, Stark!' Fury snapped. 'I gave you what you wanted, because I thought that –'

'I know, I know, your spiel on 'protecting the initiative and Stevie-bear's well being and unicorns and puffles' and shit, I know,' Tony interrupted breezily. 'But you did it grudgingly. So why hold back now?'

Steve looked between the two worriedly; Fury looked as if a vein in his head was on the verge of exploding, and Tony leaned forward, balanced on the balls of his feet, poised as if to spring.

'Because _Captain Rogers_ is clearly exhausted and –'

'Guy just took down an army of mutants, of course he is –'

'That is not a _reason_ to reinstate him –'

'Oh, I see, you like the power now –'

'Stop,' Steve said. Neither man heard him. ' _Stop._ '

No response.

'All right, shut your mouths!' Steve yelled, and both men froze and stared at him, as if he was Bruce all Hulked-out. 'I have had it. I am not a child to be coddled. I appreciate the leave time, respectfully, sir, but I will not – I _will_ not – be treated any differently from the other Avengers. I am still Captain, I still have something to contribute, and I _will_ be reinstated as of this Monday. Sooner, should an emergency arise.'

He narrowed his gaze at Fury, whose mouth had just opened. 'I am technically still of a higher rank than you, post-humous or not, and you have no right to pull me from duty. I refer to you as sir out of respect only, and defer to your orders as such.' Fury's mouth closed. 'There are still many who will back Captain America over you.'

'You do not want to do this,' Fury said quietly. 'Don't pull rank. You'll be entering a world of politics that you can't understand.'

'You do not want to deny me, then,' Steve said stiffly, and turned to leave the room. Stark followed behind him, silent, and they made it through two hallways before he spoke.

'Remind me not to piss you off in a situation where you actually have leverage, Cap,' he said, and when Steve looked over, he was looking at him as if a cherished childhood dream had come incredibly, impossibly true.

'Steve,' Steve corrected softly, and when Tony grinned he could almost imagine that he couldn't see the greenish grey bruise from Magneto around his left eye.

'Steve.'

 .....

Steve rolled under a fallen piece of wall, cursing softly. The world was an unfair thing, sometimes; he knew it, perhaps better than anyone, but he wished that it wasn't rubbed in his face on a daily basis.

_Captain America._

How was he supposed to know that, somehow, Red Skull had survived being flung into space, rescued by the vary same Chitauri that had rescued Loki? Or even that he'd been on Earth as long as Loki, just biding his time, building up Hydra? But the others still acted as if he should have seen it coming ( _maybe I should have_ ) and that it was his fault for not killing him properly the first time around ( _I tried, I tried, I tried_ ), and now they expected him to whip out a fantastic plan to take him out, but he didn't _have_ one. The Captain gritted his teeth as another explosion rocked the city; civilian lives were at stake, and he couldn't afford to hesitate much longer.

He almost bit his tongue in shock as Iron Man ploughed into the earth just a few feet away. The armour looked horrifically abused, and as he watched, more than a few plates tumbled to the asphalt as Iron Man struggled to sit up.

The man finally give it up, collapsing onto his back in a screech of metal.

'Hiya, Cap,' came Tony's cheerful voice, bleeding through the emotionless sound of the armour. 'Got anything for us?'

 _Iron_ _Man._

The Captain stared at him wordlessly. What was he supposed to _say_ to that? Here was a man who was unable to move, armour encasing his body, and he still had faith, _still_ had faith, in Captain America.

He couldn't let that go to waste. Couldn't let someone like _Tony_ go to waste.

The Captain stood, and the armour flinched. 'Cap?'

'Wait here,' the Captain said, and darted out.

'Can't go anywhere,' came the wry response, but he heard it with an unfocussed ear.

He rolled and darted, sliding between cars. Red Skull had taken a mystical jewel from Asgard (and wasn't _that_ a well used plot?) and had converted a powerful gun to fire blasts similar to Iron Man's repulsors – but with the dangerous side-effect of numbness. They didn't hurt – they just shut down your organs.

'Coming out to play with your old friend?' Red Skull called, grinning madly. He fired a shot, but it went wide. Around him, robotic devices carried weapons of their own, and wreaked utter havoc on the city. 'I've missed you so! Remember the factory?' He sighed. 'Wonderful times...'

'We have very different definitions for that,' Captain America replied absent-mindedly, ripping a robot's head from its shoulders as it tried to stick its gun in his chest.

'Pity,' Red Skull sneered. 'I thought that with our kinship, we would have a similar taste in leisure activities.' He aimed a shot at Natasha.

 _Black Widow_.

The Captain tossed out his shield without a second thought, deflecting the pulse, and Black Widow scowled at him at the same time as Red Skull. A lesser man would have collapsed under the weight of two such glares at once, but as the shield landed with a clang beside Clint, the Captain shrugged them off. Until Red Skull pointed the gun at him, and everyone and everything froze.

 _Hawkeye_ , he thought inanely. The only way to save them all was to keep them away.

'You've never had the urge to harm a living thing?' Red Skull simpered as the robots swarmed forward, none of the Avengers daring to move for fear that he would shoot the Captain. 'Never? I _refuse_ to believe that.'

'I'm very much urged to hurt you,' the Captain snapped back, muscles unmoving. Red Skull laughed, and the laughter was so disturbing because of how _pure_ it sounded, ringing out through the dust-strewn streets and ruined lives.

'And _that_ is what I mean, Captain Rogers,' Red Skull said after a too long moment of pealing laughter. 'You are not so good a human being as you pretend to be.'

'Certainly,' the Captain spat, 'a better one than you.' Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Black Widow edging her gun up, taking careful aim. He just had to keep talking. He wished, the feeling alien in his chest, that he had Tony's way with words.

 **_Iron_ ** _Man._

Red Skull's smile hardened. 'You do not understand what you speak of,' he said softly. 'That surprises me. We are so much higher than these fools you consort with. We are humanity stripped of its weaknesses, of its foibles, of its ridiculous sense of _nobility_. Even you abandon the pursuit of justice if it means your life.' Red Skull's smile sweetened perversely. 'In that, I am your better. You seek to erase that; I embraced it.'

'I would never accept my own selfishness,' the Captain bit out, eyeing the gun, 'if it meant one of my teammates' lives.'

'Yes,' Red Skull simpered. 'That always _was_ one of your more impressive hang-ups.'

He pulled the trigger.

The blast struck at the Captain's feet and ricocheted, slamming into his chest with the force of derailed train, flinging him skyward. He heard Hawkeye's roar of fury, Black Widow's shots, even the Red Skull's screams of pain as said shots buried themselves in his chest. It wouldn't put him down, but it would give them time. Even if Steve ( _Captain America, damn you_ ) had nothing left, he could always give them time.

He could feel his own slipping away, as assuredly as if he held a pocket watch by the chain and let it drop, a link at a time.  He crunched into the wall of a still-standing building, and heard it, but he didn't feel it. He thought he laughed, but he couldn't feel his mouth moving, only heard the soft shushing of his own breath. He didn't feel it when he started to fall, either.

He heard the thrusters roar loud as Hell itself, though, when Tony forced his battered suit up and forward, catching him in his arms as neatly as an apple in a basket.

It should have been impossible. Hell, it probably was. That didn't matter. All Steve knew was that he smiled before he slipped into oblivion, because he saw it reflected off of Tony's faceplate.

**_Iron Man. Iron Man. Iron man iron man iron man ironmanironmanironman..._ **

Tony.

 .....

Darkness swam around him. He felt that there was something innately wrong with that metaphor; shouldn't _he_ have been swimming through _it_? Struggling to reach the surface from a pool of inky-black sludge, tearing through it, trying to get back through the ropey grasp of the tar-thick darkness?

But that wasn't happening. The darkness merely gambolled around him, playfully, prodding his torso or nipping his arm before darting away.

He tried to reach out and capture one of the tendrils, and found it warm and smooth, with the sense of long, graceful bones beneath the nightskin. He squeezed it – or tried to – and after a pause that lasted forever, it slid out of his grasp.

Later he tried to reach for it again, but all his reaching fingers could touch was soft linen.

  .....

The light encroached on the darkness, particle by particle. He tried to resist it – it didn't feel right, the way it inhabited his vision – but it wasn't blindingly white. Just a soft, pearly grey. He thought he could handle that, and slowly, his eyes fluttered open.

The first thing to enter his consciousness was a soft, steady beeping. He looked over to his right, and so the second thing that entered his consciousness was an acid-green line, leaping in little peaks and falling flat again, matching the thumps in his chest. A heart monitor.

The third thing he really noticed was the soft snore to his left.

He looked over, and stiffened; Tony slept in a large hospital chair, his neck at an odd angle as he breathed out, rattling slightly. It was sort of charming, actually, the way that his sleeping self seemed to compensate for his waking one; where Tony Stark, Conscious, would have filled the room with arrogance and bravado, Tony Stark, Unconscious was curled in on himself, as if to take up as little space as possible.

Steve tried to correct the names, but couldn't find it in himself.

He was seated oddly, too – the seat tilted away from Steve's bed, and him sitting sideways to maximise the available space in the chair. Steve snorted; as always, Tony needed to be as efficient as possible.

The noise disturbed Tony, and he sat up, blinking groggily. 'N'tasha?' he asked, voice roughened by sleep. 'Issit time t' switch –' he caught sight of Steve, and jerked.

'Hey,' Steve said, smiling helplessly.

'Sonofabitch,' Tony said, all the syllables running together. 'You're awake.'

'I've noticed.'

'You're talking.'

'It does appear so.'

'I didn't die, too, and Heaven just looks like a shitty hospital room?'

Steve winced. 'We're not dead, Tony.' He nodded his head to the monitor. 'I'm pretty sure Heaven doesn't need to look for a pulse.'

'Maybe they just want to be sure,' Tony argued, but Steve could see it was a front so that he could process the information. Tony being Tony, it only took a few seconds, and then the other man grinned. 'Christ, Steve. I thought I'd lost you.'

Something in Steve's stomach jolted to life, flipping over and over like a pancake before  landing in a too-hot pan. 'It's okay,' he said, glad for the darkness. 'Super-soldier serum can carry me through anything.'

'Most things,' Tony corrected, leaning forward in much the same way he had in Fury's office. Steve felt that he was staring down the snarling muzzle of a tiger. 'The doctors said you almost died before the serum had a chance to kick in.' He sat back, and Steve had the sudden idea that he had just been taken off Death Row. 'Can you try _not_ to stand in front of a gun that shuts down all vital organs? I'm told it's not a nice way to go.'

Steve laughed, _really_ laughed, and when it died away he could see wonder in Tony's eyes. Something like it, anyway; Tony Stark, Man of The Future, had no reason to look at _him_ like that. 'Probably not,' Steve agreed.

'Sleep,' Tony said, and the irony of Tony telling anyone to sleep did not miss Steve. 'I'll tell the others that you were up and jabbering.'

'I'm not tired,' Steve argued, but he felt it in his bones. Tony's eyebrow rose to heights yet unmeasured, and Steve flushed.

'Good _night_ , Steve,' Tony said, and stood to go; he paused beside him, though, and a weird look came over his face.

'What?' Steve tried to ask, but was interrupted halfway through by a yawn.

Tony hesitated a second more. Finally, he reached out, and clasped Steve's fingers in his own, briefly; a tight squeeze, and then he was gone, and Steve knew that he had gotten one of the rarest shows of affection Tony had ever given anyone.

The flipping pancake in his stomach caught fire.


	3. Solemnity

**Part Three: Solemnity.**

 .....

On the day he was released from hospital, Steve was nervous.

Most everyone had visited daily for the past week Steve was in bed and under observation (despite encouraging test results, Fury had put his foot down and refused to let him go two days after Red Skull's attack), but no one had shown up for the past day. Steve from a few months ago wouldn't have cared; Steve from more recently found that he cared, and quite a lot. To make it worse, Tony hadn't shown up _once_.

That hurt the most, if he was honest. But he didn't want to be honest just at the moment.

He rode his motorcycle home, trying not to think about it. After all, how many times had Tony wrapped himself in a project, only to emerge a week later with apologies and a new gizmo that did things Steve thought only existed in sci-fi novels? It was nothing _new_. Nothing unusual.

The way it hurt was, though. And he was pretty certain that he was supposed to be trying _not_ to think about it.

He parked the motorcycle in the garage beneath his apartment building, and ignored the  elevator in favour of the stairs. He trudged up them silently, smiling when he passed a neighbour, but no more; he didn't feel up to it. All that was waiting upstairs was an empty apartment.

He reached his floor, and almost unlocked his front door before he realised a bulky, messily sealed envelope was taped to his door. That wasn't what paused him, though; what paused him with the realisation that he recognised the handwriting on the front, even though he'd never seen Tony write his name.

He tore it open, and a folded square of black plastic fell into his hand; he recognised it as one of the flexi-screens all over Tony's tower, and unfolded it delicately. It flickered to life in his hand.

Not wanting his neighbours to see it, he stepped into his apartment and shut the door, before sinking into one of his kitchen chairs.

_Steve._

_Hi. I actually haven't written a real letter in years. And Jarvis made sure to let me know that he won't let me erase any of this, so I actually need to try not to screw this up. He's kind of a dick about that. And yes, I know he's a computer. I know, I shouldn't talk about him like he's alive. Bruce says that all the time oh god I'm rambling this is going to look so fucking stupid when you get it. Maybe I'll throw it out and start over._

_I said that last time._

_Look, I hate saying this. I don't say it to a lot of people, either, so appreciate it, you spangled capsicle. Deep breaths, Stark._

_I'm sorry._

Steve stared at the flexi-screen as if it was going to bite him, and he had a hard time breathing.

_I'm imagining you hyperventilating at that, and I've gotta tell you Steve, it's a pretty funny image. If I could draw, I'd include it, but for some reason I can only draw machinery. Artistic deficiency, I guess. Or maybe I don't want to draw and give it to you because you can do it so much better, and what can I say, I don't like to upstaged, even in absentia._

_Shit, I'm rambling again. Sorry for that, too._

_But mostly I'm sorry for running out on you at the hospital. And for being a dick when I met you. And a lot of other things that I don't want to mention in case you don't remember them because of your superior forgiveness abilities and I_ really _don't want you to remember them then._

_God, I really suck at this._

_But you've been a good leader for us, and I've been kind of treating you like shit, and I'm sorry. I would have given you the key in person, but I can't do it. I'm just a coward, I guess. Whatever. Coward isn't such a bad thing to be._

_Oh, right! Key's in the envelope. I hope you like it. Everyone else seemed to like theirs, so you should, too. Jarvis will show you the way._

_I can't believe I'm really going to give this to you. I'm going to sound like such an idiot, but I'm way braver on paper. Or electronic paper. Whatever._

_Tony_.

Steve threw his head back and laughed, because even if Tony didn't write letters (which definitely showed), he had written one anyway, and left it on Steve's door, and it was so unmistakeably _Tony_ that Steve's stomach burned like magnesium.

He fished through the envelope and found a card he hadn't noticed before, and looked at it, puzzled. It was a thin sheaf of plastic, with a small hole near the top for a keyring, and it only had a letter-number combo and a single word.

 _64T Floor_.

It hit him, and nothing in the world could have dampened the grin spreading across his face. He grabbed his keys and helmet, intent on leaving that second, but paused. The dark-blue of the unfolded flexi-screen and bright mint-green of the letter shone at him from the table. He stepped over, folded it very carefully, and put it in the breast pocket of his leather jacket. It swung there, a heavy and freeing promise, as he ran down the stairs, all but leaping full flights of stairs at a time.

 .....

'Good evening, Captain Rogers,' came the voice of Jarvis as Steve pulled into the underground garage of the Tower. 'I trust you have received your letter?'

'Yeah,' Steve said uncertainly into the open air. Knowing that Jarvis was wired into the entire building was one thing; even though he'd spent time here before, he'd only ever heard Jarvis when Tony had been working with him in the labs. Conversing with what sounded like an invisible man was going to require a _lot_ of getting used to, if what he suspected was right.

'Excellent. If you would park your motorcycle in the indicated place –' a light flickered over a parking spot '– then I will show you the way.'

...Oddly vague for someone – some _thing_ – that Steve remembered from previous weeks in the tower as normally _very_ specific. He shrugged though, and parked, knocking the kickstand into place. He'd find out soon enough.

'This way, Captain Rogers,' Jarvis said, and a blue line – shining the same brightness as Tony's arc reactor, Steve realised with a pang – led the way to an elevator. He followed it quickly, trying very hard not to think about the pang. He entered the elevator, and saw that the button for the sixty-fourth floor was already lit up. He stifled a grin.

'Master Stark has asked me to fill you in on a few protocols,' Jarvis continued as the elevator began to rise. 'If anything confuses you, you may ask for assistance by saying my name and I will help you any way I can. In the event that my servers are too busy, Master Stark can be found on the roof, the sixty-fifth floor, or sub-level one through eight.' The buttons flashed in that order. 'You are to feel at home on any of these floors.

'In addition,' Jarvis added as the elevator began to slow, 'Sub-levels thirteen through four are labs, three and two training facilities, sub-level one a garage, floors one through twenty are workspaces, floors twenty one through fifty undecided, floors fifty-one through seventy are living spaces, and floors seventy one through eighty are SHIELD reserve offices. The roof, of course, is Master Stark's domain.'

Steve didn't hear past floor fifty, because the door had slid open and he'd stopped breathing.

It was clearly a living space, that was for sure, but it was no living space that he could have imagined. There was a small alcove to the right with a wall-screen and large shelves of plastic cases; when Steve looked, he realised it was almost every movie released in the thirties and forties (including many that had not been released in the United States.) There was a large bed – far larger than Steve thought it had a right to be – and a small area that he was _certain_ was modelled after a Zen garden from a movie he and Tony had watched and he had said he liked. There was even a large area that could only be described as a studio, filled with art supplies and blank reams of paper.

He wandered through it all, surprised, and more than a little pleased; he didn't even notice when Jarvis bid him a good afternoon and fell silent.

It was beautiful. It was mad. It was _daring_ – how many months had Tony been saving up conversations, tallying likes and dislikes, watching for hints of approval for certain things over others? It felt like walking into a diary, almost, and as Steve stood in the centre of _his floor_ , he realised something. It was a diary about him – definitely _for_ him – but it had Tony's name all over it.

'Captain?'

'Yes, Jarvis?' Steve replied, knowing that he sounded dazed and not caring.

'Master Stark asked that I inquire into your opinion of this space when you had a moment.' There was a pause, then, in what sounded like a very amused tone, 'He also wished for it to be known that he could change anything you didn't desire.'

Steve shook his head in wonder. 'No, don't do that,' he said, and smiled. 'Tell him it's...'

After a moment's silence, Jarvis ventured, 'Would you like a synonym, sir?' It may have been Steve's imagination, but he thought he heard a note of understanding in the AI's voice.

'What's a good word for “I can't even put it into words how much this means to me”?' Steve asked slowly, not certain if that was specific enough.

A pause. 'How does wondrous sound, sir?'

Steve smiled, and closed his eyes. 'Perfect.'

 .....

Steve was on a mission. Many obstacles stood in his way. Some would only trip him up, and some would doom the mission in its entirety. He would not fail. Not with everyone watching him.

'A left, a left! Hang a left!'

Barton screamed in his ear as Steve jerked the controller desperately to the left, avoiding one final banana peel and bringing Luigi screeching into first place. Clint whooped and jumped up, dancing around the room, pulling Thor up beside him; Steve watched in bemusement, but shrugged. Clint had told him it was absolutely imperative that he learn how to play video games in order to understand day-to-day life in the twenty-first century, and so Steve had acquiesced. Besides, the game was kind of fun, and Steve liked the look of the cartoons. It was certainly different from the cartoons in the forties.

Natasha shook her head at the two yelping idiots in the middle of the room, and smiled at Steve. 'Good job,' she said. 'Did you like the room?'

It was the morning after Tony had sent out the keys, and no one had seen him for a few days. Everyone told him not to worry, but it was a bruise on Steve's brain that hurt when he nodded. 'Fantastic,' he said, smiling back and pointedly _not_ thinking of Tony. 'He really outdid himself.'

'He did,' Natasha agreed, and without looking picked up the controller and threw it, striking Clint on the hip.

'What was that for?' Clint said, sounding peeved as he picked the controller up again and rubbed his hip.

Natasha didn't answer, only smiled enigmatically. The group seemed to fall into familiar patterns, and Steve sat back, watching. Bruce smiled and laughed when goaded; Thor boomed and joked and tried to understand the more obscure earthly references; Natasha and Coulson watched Clint passively as he wended his way through them all, grinning like a maniac.

They worked well together. Steve knew it, and he wished he wasn't so foreign to it, like an arm awkwardly sewn on in the middle of the chest. Useful, when it worked, but downright unsightly otherwise.

He stood, nodding to each of them with a smile as he passed; they each returned it before going back to their bickering. At least they acknowledged him, now, outside of battles.

That almost made Tony's strange absence bearable.

 _I'm not thinking about that,_ Steve thought fiercely, and went to bed.

 .....

'Holy shit, you're alive!'

'Why, thank you, Barton, for that timely reminder. Get away from the coffee pot.'

Steve grinned, his heart leaping up like a puppy at the sound of a playmate, as he entered the kitchen. It felt like the world had righted itself as he settled his eyes on the wayward Tony Stark, grappling with Barton for possession of the coffee pot.

' _Ow_ , you fucker, that's my _eye_ –'

'Don't need that to fly a suit, do you?'

'Oh, you think you're so clever, you little brat –'

'Brat?! I'm taller than by, like, six inches! That's half a foot, for the sleep-deprived –'

'Sleep-deprived or not, I can still –'

The two of them shouted obscenities at each other, unaware as Steve slid past them and started up the coffee-maker like Jarvis taught him. Most of the machinery and technology was fairly easy to understand, Steve had realised, once someone (or some-A.I.) sat you down and taught you the basis systems for most technology.

Soon the coffee pot (picked up from where the two of them had dropped it on the counter) was full, and Steve poured it into two mugs. He turned around and held them out, waiting.

It didn't take long.

'Oh my god,' Clint said, dropping Tony on the floor. 'You're _amazing_.'

He took the mug with the same air of a child with the first present of Christmas morning, inhaling the vapour ceremoniously before taking a sip.

Steve swore he saw his eyes roll into the back of his head.

Rolling his own eyes, Steve crouched, careful not to spill the coffee, and held it out to the shocked Tony. 'Here,' Steve said, smiling.

'Y-you're not mad?' Tony said, and Steve frowned. Tony's voice sounded very small, and Steve was pretty sure that was the shortest sentence he'd ever heard out of his mouth.

'Of course not,' Steve said, and jiggled the coffee cup a little. 'You were probably working on something. I'm right, aren't I?'

'Oh, shut up, you smug little...' Tony grumbled, but took the coffee cup. Steve stood and started making breakfast (something that was becoming a habit since he had learned no one else except for Bruce could cook without exploding things, and since Bruce slept in until eleven o'clock most mornings, Steve was de facto breakfast man.)

(He was really, really okay with that.)

 .....

'I'msorryyouknow.'

Steve looked over at Tony, and he was certain that his surprise was visible through the cowl.

They sat on the cooling head of one of Baron Zemo's robots (what was with supervillains and robots?), waiting for SHIELD to arrive and begin the clean-up and assessment. The others were scattered down the street, checking each other for injuries, and Steve had been watching until Tony had spoken.

(He didn't know when he had given up on the plan to shove them all away, but he couldn't do it.)

'For what?' Steve asked, honestly confused.

'For –' Tony began, then looked down at his hands. The mask was still up, but there was a distinct hangdog air about the suit of armour. 'I've been nothing but a dick, and I'm really sorry for that.'

'You haven't done anything,' Steve said, and flicked a pebble off the metal with a small _ping_ noise. He was embarrassed, and _that_ probably showed through the cowl, too. It was one thing to apologise via letter, and accept the apology silently, and never talk about it again; but he wasn't good at this whole 'expressing feelings' stuff. The past few months of trying to work through the temporal displacement and PTSD was the most open he'd ever been, ever. 'If anything, I should be thanking you,' Steve said, and then realised that he had finished his train of thought aloud.

'What?' Tony said, and that was _definitely_ shock in his voice.

'I mean...' Steve said, then sighed. 'I don't know how to put it,' he said, looking over at Tony, and he began to laugh helplessly.

The quirk of the head, the way it managed to make the expressionless mask look perplexed, only fed into Steve's mirth.

'Steve...?' Tony asked, sounding as bewildered as he looked.

'I'm –  eheh – _awful_ at this,' Steve explained, once his laughter died down. 'Probably as bad at this as you are at writing letters.'

Tony nodded, and Steve was suddenly glad that the mask didn't show anything. 'Yeah, you are,' Tony agreed, and Steve snorted again. 'But so am I.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Exactly what I said.'

Steve looked over at him, and when Tony looked back, he pushed back his cowl. After a moment, Tony followed suit, and only when he could see the man's eyes again did Steve speak.

'Thank you.'

'For what?'

'For coming after me. For being a dick. For making sure I didn't jump.'

Tony watched him silently, and Steve watched him back, even after Coulson and Fury and the rest of SHIELD descended, even after they were too busy talking and debriefing and cleaning up, because there was a very small part of him (one he would never admit to) that was afraid Tony would disappear again.

Because, for reasons unknown, Tony Stark had become Steve Roger's anchor in an unsteady world, his home port, and Steve didn't want to lose sight of home.

 .....

'You're out here late.'

Steve lifted his head, and grinned at Tony as the man wended through the mess of machine parts on the roof. The heat was oppressive, even inside the air-conditioned tower, but on the roof there was a breeze. Summer lay like wool on the city, and Steve had left the others downstairs to listen to Clint's whining. Apparently the heat and Hawkeye didn't mix well. Hell, even Thor's perfect hair was starting to look frazzled, and Heaven help the first person to tell Natasha that her hair was sticking up in the back.

Tony, as always, looked perfect.

(In Steve's opinion, anyway.)

Midnight was lessening the heat, though, and the constant race of cars was starting to slow. Steve could remember when this was the only time he felt normal, and he loved that now he could just take pleasure from it, not solace.

'What's got you up, Steve?'

There – the undercurrent of affection. Steve loved that.

The magnesium flared again.

'Nothing, really,' Steve replied as Tony took a seat in the cheap lawn chair next to Steve's. 'It's just quiet. And cool. It's nice up here.'

'Yeah, it is,' Tony said, 'Though, I'm going to be honest, that's the first time in a long time I've heard the word 'cool' used to describe the temperature.'

'You have weird slang these days,' Steve joked, but when he looked over at Tony, the other man looked serious. 'What?'

' _We_ have weird slang these days,' Tony corrected quietly. 'You're not going anywhere if I can help it.'

Steve grinned, and felt a thrum of happiness that Tony looked so surprised as he did so. 'You're right.' The grin grew. 'For once.'

'What is that supposed to mean?!'

'Tony, Tony, Tony,' Steve sighed, and it did not miss him how Tony froze. 'When will you learn...'

He leaned over.

'That you aren't always right? Or at least...'

Tony's eyes were wide, but he wasn't retreating. A man like Tony wouldn't, Steve thought.

'That you can't always predict what happens next?'

The kiss was quick. Just a brush, and then Steve was sitting back in his chair, smiling up at the stars.

'Oh.'

Steve couldn't help it; he laughed. Tony looked thoroughly offended.

'Hey! I would have _done_ something, if you hadn't had that girlfriend back in World War Two, or, you know, _been_ _from the forties_! Weren't you all massive homophobes?!'

'I always hated bullies,' Steve corrected, still trying to fight through his laughter, 'mostly because what they were picking on me for tended to be true.'

Tony looked thunderstruck. 'You were gay the whole time, and never told anyone?!' He looked as if he wanted to beat himself up for not figuring it out. 'But that Carter woman! She was –'

'A woman I could be happy with, yes,' Steve agreed, finally reduced to hiccoughs, 'but not a woman I loved more than I loved a sister.'

'You have got to be kidding me,' Tony growled, and then Steve's view of the stars was obstructed by Tony's face. 'I held back all these months so that you wouldn't freak out, and you would have been –'

'Actually, I would have “freaked out”,' Steve said, and the laughter was gone. 'What would a man who lives practically in the future want with a relic of the past?'

Tony froze, staring at Steve. Steve looked back calmly, even though his heart was in his throat. This was the moment. It would all fall through, or Tony would retreat. Because Steve was not going to back off, not if the man who was willing to reach through seventy years of sleep, and ninety four years of self-hatred and guilt and confusion, was standing in front of him with the world in his hands.

Steve's world, too, if he reached out and took it.

He planned to.

'Oh,' Tony snapped belatedly, 'Stop being so goddamned perfect.'

And then Tony kissed him, hard and passionate, and the world fell into Steve's hands.


End file.
